Review of Reddit’s Interface
Reddit prides itself as being the “frontpage of the internet.” Everything is user driven but it is extremely hard to get into. This is likely because of how initially off-putting its user interface is. The idea behind Reddit is simple: users make posts in various subreddits (small communities within the larger community) and others upvote or downvote posts to affect a post’s visibility. However, the site’s interface makes it so hard to discover these features without an avid user telling you about their existence in the first place. I remember when I first started using reddit, It was very hard for me to get into it without researching just how you really operate the site.
When the user first opens up reddit, he or she is overwhelmed by lines of texts. The user first notices blue headlines for posts, followed by “submitted (age of post) ago by (user) to r/(some subreddit).” The second line is extremely cryptic because how is the user supposed to know what a subreddit is and it takes a while to understand that you can create an account because the sign up button is in small text on the top right. There is also a relatively large number with an up and down arrow next to the post which indicates its popularity. However, the posts on the frontpage are not necessarily ordered by the size of these numbers. This causes a lot of initial confusion for a first time user and it seems to take a lot of time learn just what all this information means because it is very hard for a user to discover the website’s features. Everything is focused on the user driven content, so the posts are given almost all the attention, while the rest of the site’s features are pushed to the side of the site without much ways to discover how they are used. For example, there is a search bar on the top right corner, but how is a new user supposed to really know what to search for when he or she doesn’t understand what a subreddit is or how posts really work. The frontpage will also always appear quite cluttered for a beginner user. Furthermore, unlike other social media websites, viewing content takes extra steps. While websites like Facebook and Instagram immediately give links with coinciding large images, Reddit forces users to go through an extra step of opening a post before you can see the actual content. This is alleviated a little in the mobile version of the website, but it is still a very daunting for a new user to understand. However, after learning how to use the site, it is extremely easy to remember how to use it because all of its functions are in essence, pretty simple concepts. The interface is also very efficient at presenting a lot of information in a neat manner, assuming the user is comfortable with the layout.
A simple way to fix reddit’s interface problem is to offer a short tutorial for new users and also to allow for different layout options. A short tutorial that tells you what each relevant term means and callouts to what each button does would really help new users. This can also be done in quite an elegant manner. Reddit should also offer at least one different layout that makes the website look less cluttered. This allows people with a preference of more spaced interfaces to feel more comfortable and makes the website more approachable to new users.